Ch 3. The Hunt

The key turned in the lock at dawn. Elira’s hand flew to the dagger in her boot, her heart hammering against her ribs. Kael's voice echoed in her skull.

The next time... I will chain you to this bed with silver.

The door opened. A guard stood there.

"The Commander requests your presence in the west garden my lady. For breakfast."

To her it was sounded like a summons to a new battlefield.

She dressed with slow, deliberate care, the dagger a cold weight against her thigh. She would not face the Wolfhunter unarmed.

He sat at the wrought-iron table, not moving as she approached. Sunlight fell on the new stitches crossing his temple—her work. He poured tea for both of them, his hand trembling.

"You showed up," he said, his voice flat.

"Your invitation sounded like an order." She took the seat across from him, her back straight.

His winter-sky eyes scanned her, but it was different from the hunter's cold assessment of the night before. This was heavier, more personal, as if he were searching for a ghost inside her.

Their fingertips brushed as he set the teapot on the table. They froze. Their eyes instantly met and held for a single second. Her chest felt heavy as she sensed the emotion he hid behind those cold, calculating eyes.

Then she saw them. Men moving beyond the rose bushes with a deadlier silence than household guards. Silver glinted on their arrow tips and belts.

Wolf-hunters.

Her breakfast turned to ash in her mouth.

Kael followed her gaze. A muscle twitched on his sharp jaw.

"I've increased security. The estate's perimeter is... unpredictable at night."

"Are you protecting me," she asked, her voice cool, "or protecting everyone from me?"

A dark, hollow smile touched his lips, not reaching his eyes.

"Is there a difference?" He leaned forward, his voice dropping into a private conversation.

"We need to talk about last night. You led a wolf to my door."

"He came because you provoked me! You made me shift!"

"I provoked you?" The words cracked out of him, sharp as a whip.

For a fleeting second, raw, unfiltered pain flashed in his eyes—the pain of a man who had tried and failed for years, only to be blamed for the explosion. He mastered it instantly, his face hardening into the Hunter's mask.

"I found a letter to another man. I asked a question. You are the one who hid a monster in my house."

"You're the one who married the monster, Commander. Or did you forget your vows so soon?"

He stood abruptly. The barb landed. A fresh anger, sharp and personal, flashed in his eyes.

"Your tracker leaves a trail a child could follow. He is... careless." Lie. He paused, recalling the humiliation he felt when they lost the wolf.

"I struck him with a silver arrow. Pity it didn't hit a vital area. But I will always have another chance. And the next hunt will be the last."

The threat was a physical vise around her lungs. Thane was hurt. Because of her.

"The full moon is in two nights, Elira," he said, his voice returning to that deadly, terrifying forced calm.

"Can you control yourself? Or will I be forced to put down a feral wolf and her wounded mate in the same week?"

He wasn't asking about control. He was asking her to choose a side. To choose a victim.

Elira held his stare. She saw it then—not just the hunter's calculation, but a desperate, almost imperceptible plea in the tightness around his mouth. He was waiting for her to choose him. To deny the bond.

She let a slow, cold smile touch her lips.

"Why, Husband," she said, her voice dangerously soft. "Wouldn't you prefer a surprise?"

For a fraction of a second, the plea in his eyes shattered into pure devastation. He had his answer. He leaned back, the movement stiff, as if the air itself had become heavy.

"Then I'll be watching."

He walked away, his retreating form radiating a loneliness like a chill in the warm garden air.

-------

The clock was ticking. And Elira didn't have any time to waste. She needed information about this new side of her she just discovered. Information to take control before she lost her self. And the information she needed about her race is in the Rennar family library.

That meant she needed the key from Kael's study.

She slipped from the garden the moment the main door shut behind him. The house was quiet. The door to his study was unlocked. Of course it was. He was the hunter; he never expected the prey to come to him.

She heard a footstep nearby. Panicked, she slipped into the room. Her hand was wet with sweat as she put her ear to the door, listening until the footsteps had faded away. She released the breath she had been holding.

The room smelled of pine and cold metal. A hunter's den: severe, neat, a map on the wall, a barren desk.

Her eyes swept the room, catching on a heavy wooden box on a low shelf. Padlocked. On top, a bundle of letters tied with a faded silk ribbon. Ilyana’s handwriting.

'So the rumor is true? They are lovers?" a sharp unwanted pang landed on her chest.

Then as her eyes scanned the fallen pages, she saw it, the line on the princess's letter '...a marriage of convenience is one thing, Kael, but must you live as a monk? She will never understand you. I do.'

Focus.

She tried reaching for a spot further back to look for the key but her cloak swept the letters to the floor.

Stupid! Her heart leaped into her throat, panicked that the sound had drawn the guards' attention.

She dropped to her knees, scrambling for the pages. Her finger trembled.

The jolt had shifted the box; the lid was cracked open.

Secrets inside. A weapon?

No. She shook her head. A distraction.

She looked away, kept searching. There. A long iron key on a hidden hook beneath the shelf, its bow shaped like a wolf’s head biting a crescent moon. The Rennar symbol.

She snatched the key. The metal was cold. Without a backward glance, she fled.

The Rennar library was a tomb of forgotten truths. She went straight to a section blocked by a frayed red rope. The Forbidden Collection.

She found it: Instinct and Transformation: Observations on the Lycanthrope.

She carried the heavy tome to a table, her heart pounding a frantic rhythm against her ribs. The pages crackled with age. She skimmed past charts of moon cycles and dietary notes until her eyes found a heading that stopped her breath.

"Signs of Awakening."

Trouble sleeping. Senses too sharp. Wild emotions. A burning between the shoulders. A tightness in the chest.

She froze. A phantom heat ignited between her shoulder blades. The tightness—she'd had it for weeks.

She turned the page, her throat dry.

"On Mates and Recognition."

Wolves recognize their mates by instinct. A physical pull beneath the skin. A sense of deep familiarity. A tie of blood and soul that transcends mere affection.

A pull beneath the skin.

Elira closed her eyes. The truth crashed down on her with the weight of the stone walls around her. That powerful, invisible force that had drawn her to Thane from the first second in the woods—it wasn't just love. It was biology. The animal inside recognizing its other half.

She was tied to him. And she was changing.

Her eyes fell on one final, brutal line:

"The first transformation is often violent, triggered by extreme fear or rage. Without control, the newborn wolf will attack the nearest source of that emotion."

Kael's voice echoed, cold and clear: "The full moon is in two nights. Can you manage then?"

He wasn't just waiting to see if she would change.

He was waiting to see what he would have to do. Or how he would end it.